


Lucifer

by malyce



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 22:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malyce/pseuds/malyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rogue puts Yuriko to rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucifer

Rogue opened her mouth, but found that something was caught in her throat. The words _Oh God, Logan! She’s still alive!_ refused to escape. She stared beneath the glassy surface of the water at the motionless figure that lay at the bottom. The lips were frozen in place, the eyes riveted in the same horrified expression. The boiling liquid metal had flowed out of her tear ducts moments before it solidified. Her lungs were frozen in place and her heart gripped her in the same sensation. Yuriko Oyama was a beautiful, painful sight with her delicate features frozen in living death. Even without touching her, Marie could feel something radiating from her, and something gripped her. This was moments before the impulse seized her; why not do something merciful? She was startled by the thought as soon as it crossed her mind, and wanted to push it away. It was ugly, this idea of a mercy killing. Even as Rogue carefully peeled the glove away from her hand, her fingers trembled. She wasn't certain whether it was the action of mercy or the all too rare sensation of touch that she craved.  
  
The water was cold when she extended her fingers beneath it. She had to lean over the edge to reach the woman's face. She pressed her palm to the hardened surface of the woman's cheek. Rogue choked as she felt the hot, gelatinous substance harden in the molecular spaces between the cells of her muscle tissue. As she was filled with adamantine, it crossed her mind that this was the same mythical metal that bound Lucifer in Milton's _Paradise Lost._ There had been a brief discussion about the poem in Professor Xavier's class the week after Logan had left.  
  
During the lecture, she had been doodling claw-like extensions in her notes with a mechanical pencil. She had felt the heaviness of metal on bone when she had absorbed his memories and sensations. It stressed his joints, she learned as she was brought back to life high above the city lights of New York. For a few days, she had been privy to the sensations of weight that bore down on his neck and spine, and had been energized by the sudden lightness when Logan's energy finally allowed Marie to feel again with her own mind and body. Marie had to wonder if this was the way that Milton'sLucifer was chained. Perhaps he was sitting upright for eternity, feeling his own terrible muscles paralyzed and choked with steel. Lucifer and Yuriko Oyama were both chained from the inside.  
  
Marie looked helplessly at Yuriko, feeling her desperation and her pain. She abandoned all rational thought and threw her body into the water, breaking the surface with a splash that sounded like the crash of lightning when she was beneath the rippling currents. It was dark in the watery coffin, and there hardly seemed to be room enough for the two of them. Marie forced her body to sink a few inches lower. She idly let a strand of the woman's dark hair pass through her fingers, and then pressed her own face to the inside of the woman's neck while she held her head in her bare palm. As Yuriko gladly surrendered herself to Rogue, the girl could feel things that went further back than just a few minutes before. There was the feeling of violation as she felt a needle plunged into the back of her neck, knowing what it meant, that her mind would be trapped again in the grip of another.  
  
 _He doesn't mind mutants as long as he can control them._  
  
Marie shuddered, paying little attention to the violent expansion in her rib cage.   
  
_It's okay. I felt the same way when I was on Liberty Island._  
  
Touch would not wake the sleeper, but would send her into the blissful abandon of rest. Rogue could have stayed in the water for hours and felt Yuriko and herself slip away as the pain began to finally subside. Somewhere above the surface of the water, she was distantly aware something reaching into the grave. She was pulled upwards, rising from the water and away from the ethereal figure in the water. Rogue was ripped away, and felt the comforting blackness slip away.  
  
"Rogue?" a voice pleaded. She crumbled onto the concrete floor of the factory as she choked up mouthfuls of water.  
  
"Logan," she murmured as she sputtered, "She was... alive." The blurry shapes in front of her eyes solidified, "She was still alive under there." Then came the guilty expression.  
  
"What were you doing?"  
  
"I couldn't just leave her like that," Marie protested, "Logan... you shouldn't... you didn't have to do that to her." She saw him grimace, and could almost read the sarcastic remark that lurked behind his eyes.  
  
“Marie, this isn’t-“ Logan was cut off by a sharp, angry word.  
  
"Don't." There was a moment of silence.  
  
“She was trying to kill me," Logan said defensively, "What was I supposed to do, ask the bitch out for dinner?”  
  
He regretted the words as soon as he said them. Rogue's eyes flew open, and her lips tightened into a tense line.  
  
“Don’t you _ever_ call her that!” She pulled herself up, and noticed that her right hand was still bare. She drew her hand into the sleeve of her uniform. He extended a hand to her, and she drew away from him, "I'm fine. I can walk."  
  
He watched her walk out of the factory with a different stride, a sway in her hips and an animalistic grace that had been absent before. As she left, Rogue touched her tongue to the roof of her mouth. The faint taste of metal still lingered there, and she had a feeling that it would never disappear entirely.


End file.
